- 4 Grand Slams in a year is never a sure thing anymore. Due to COVID the Australian Open 2020 was the only Slam which ran as normal, with capacity crowds, and the same dates as it runs every year. Wimbledon did not feature this year.
2. It is possibly that the order of the Grand Slams can be changed. With a big outbreak of COVID in Europe when the French Open and Wimbledon were supposed to take place, Wimbledon was completely cancelled for the year for the first time since 1945. The French Open postponed itself to be in October, while the US Open started a little behind schedule in September.
3. Tennis without fans is a thing. Again, due to the virus the organisers of the ATP, WTA etc worked together to put plans into place to restrict the transmission of the virus between fans as well as players. It meant that some tournaments were played completely without fans ( ie the US Open).. while the French Open had very minimal fans this year.
4. Novak Djokovic isn’t invincible as yet. Although he is still number 1 in the world and is very close to taking over Federer’s record of most weeks at number 1, he made a few decisions this year which made him a target. The three biggest being, his decision to do the ADRIA tour despite it being right in the middle of a pandemic ( resulting in some players contracting Covid), his brain snap when he hit a ball with pace accidentally towards a linesperson and was defaulted, and three his decision to form a break away tennis council.
5. It’s possible to play just 14 matches in a year and maintain the number 1 ranking. Due to the decision of the ATP and WTA tour to protect players rankings and not penalise them if they decided not to play tournaments during the pandemic Ash Barty was able to hold onto the number 1 ranking all year after playing just 14 matches.
6. Nadal is not ready to go away just yet. He may have just reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open this year and decide not to play the US Open.. but despite this as well as a quick clay court season preparation he was able to compete at the highest level and play possibly his best ever Tennis nd win the French Open title. This was Nadals 13th French Open title and he did it in style by beating the number 1 player quite easily in the final.
7.The WTA is still wide open and any player can have a win on their day. This was exactly what happened in the French Open with Iga Swiatek going all the way through and winning the title. She became Polands first ever Grand Slam Champion.
8. Azarenka still has the desire to play high level Tennis. After the average results of the last few years it seemed Azarenka had lost either her drive, or ability to be able to compete with the top players. This year in the US season of Tennis she put the world on notice again and had some stellar results including her US Open final result.
9. Naomi Osaka is an incredible Tennis player, and ambassador for matters of importance off the court as well. After each US Open match this year she wore a mask with a different African American person’s name on it who had been killed in a situation of police violence or racial profiling.
10. Humanity is more important than Tennis. With the emergence of the virus and declaration of the pandemic, the world was thrown into disarray with a huge amount of fear, misinformation and death and sport had to take a back seat to it while we breathed and got above water so to speak. I think that we also realised how much we all love Tennis and the joy it brings us to watch our favourite players compete. It helps us to feel connected to something we love and to have a little breather from what the world is facing right now. Not having Tennis to watch for a few months, made us more appreciative of it when he came back into our lives.
Now… what will the finale of 2020 be!!!???
Yours in Tennis
James